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Epic trip and good write up - I'd say you're easily a good enough writer to turn that into a longer more detailed version if you CBA.
Some of my photos I may have added a little filter to bring out the colours, but believe me this one didn't need a filter
So what happened to the tyre?
Awesome, absolutely bloody awesome.
Best bit for me is the bike choice and the off-road/singletrack/fun part. I guess it would have been tempting to to just stick to the roads and chip away at the massive distance.
@stwhannah - this would make a great magazine article.
Superb effort!
I bet you were a lot fitter and faster when you got home!
Did much stuff break?
Would you do anything different next time?
Fabulous thread.
Certainly was a trip of a lifetime.
How easy was it to find fresh water to keep hydrated?
- What's the story with the zip ties and the tyre/rim?
- Why no pictures of the dogs?
- How was riding the single track with such a loaded bike?
- What would you do differently next time?
OK, fine. I'll stop using the car to go to the trails and just ride there instead!
Fantastic effort and it looks like an amazing trip.
Thread of the year and its only March.
Absolutely brilliant mate!! very very jealous.
You need to run a Q&A with all the questions.
@ricko1984 do you realise the negative effect your post has had on the UK's national productivity? How many people do you think are right now looking at maps and Komoot? How many are spending hours speccing the ideal singletrack bikepacking setup?
That looks amazing. What a trip!
Thanks for the photos and write up.
That looks and sounds an amazing trip, thanks for sharing!
Fantastic trip and pics. I have been lucky enough to do three multi-month tours. Road based. There is a sense of freedom that comes from having no appointments or dealines. Just packing the bike, riding, camping, repeat. First one was 11 weeks. Using paper maps. No mobile phone. Only contact was using my netbook when I got wifi in any small towns I passed through. Once is never enough. Domestic arrangements mean I'm unable to do long tours right now. Managed a month last year but I will do another in a few years.
Amazing trip!
Best bit for me is the bike choice and the off-road/singletrack/fun part. I guess it would have been tempting to to just stick to the roads and chip away at the massive distance.
100% this, makes it much closer to something I can relate to.
I bet your bicep/glove/knee tanlines were incredibly defined by the end of it!
Awesome thread, thank you for taking the time to post.
Can you show us the route on a map somehow? (turn it into a Strava segment maybe 😉 )
Fantastic achievement!
I gave up a hiking trip in Greece due to the dogs, so kudos for persevering!
I thought this would be worth a read and am glad I came back to it when I had the time… I’m slightly jealous (having cancelled both my personal biggish - but nowhere near as a big as yours - ride plans due to COVID and post financial crash job loss). I’m also impressed by the commitment to ride big, wild stuff on your own. I think that’s quite something and I know it would have held me back. Thanks for sharing
oops..didn't mean to post those last photos twice
Anyways thanks again all for taking an interest in the trip and nice to know that my little weird idea dreamed up a couple of years ago struck a chord with so many of you.
Now I've had a chance to go through your questions, I'll start responding to them:
For powering electronics essentially I had 2No sets of Eneloop Pro batteries for my GPS that I rotated after charging in a mini charger that I had. I would usually get 3-4 days life out of each set. The same charger also charged the batteries for my head torch.
My phone had 2No sets of batteries that again I would rotate after charging. With the phone mostly switched off or in flight mode, again I would get 3-4 days out of a battery.
The above would be charged up whenever I stayed in some accommodation or dropped by a cafe/ restaurant.
For a music obsessive like myself it was also important to have an MP3 player to listen to music in my tent at night, although the temperamental like b@gger wouldn't turn on sometimes.
I also had a backup powerpack, which also doubled as the battery for my Magicshine light, but I didn't end up using it that much in all honesty.
Generally had no issues with running out of power, unless on the occasion that I arrived somewhere I hadn't anticipated different plug sockets (Such as arriving in Switzerland or older Italian residences) and so would have to find a shop next day that sold an adapter.
I'm currently bring my GPX's up to date to take account of unplanned route changes, which there were quite a lot of.
I'd plan my routes using the Komoot mtb planning function and cross reference that against Google Maps/ Streetview, itineraries off mtb websites and scouring Youtube videos.
In general I'd have a fairly good idea what I was letting myself in for, but sometimes it just wasn't possible with the information available. This led to some surprises both good and bad.
Croatia in particular had a knack for paths/ dirt loads disappearing into nothing, usually with a nice big spiders web across it to catch unsuspecting cyclists. This was a shame as there is so much potential for great mtb riding in the country. To balance it out though Croatia also had some of my favourite trails of the tour.
Holy cow. Amazing. You weren't kidding when you said you were going light!
Wow. Awesome.
Looks amazing. Makes me want to do something similar again.
Think I've ridden that path before.
Awesome stuff, thanks for sharing!
I did a lot more wild camping earlier on in the tour.
Generally it was fine, but I tried to keep myself out of view, which led to some less than ideal dirt patches in woodland. Still it's all part of the fun though and I did end up having some pretty nice spots as well, such as below:
Later on after my second round of being sick and heading into increasingly wilder places in the south (With wilder animals) my resolve cracked and I mostly stuck to official accommodation.
With regards to the dog situation, if I weren't far enough away to get a good head start, I'd usually just stop, get off my bike, place it between me & them and calmly talk to them. Usually after a bit they'd calm down/ lose interest and wonder off. Sometimes a local would step in to give the dogs a good talking to and I'd make my escape.
Always kept some stones in my top tube bag just in case they didn't get the message.
With regards to the bike its always difficult to choose one that meets all kinds of riding you'd encounter on a tour such as this, but yeah I think I chose right with the full suss.
It definitely came into it's own on a lot of the trails in the alps and some of the rockfests in Croatia, but even if the going was smooth or asphalt I never felt begrudging of the knobbly tyres. I just accepted it as part of the package, along with the funny looks from the other tourer's I met along the way 😉.
Nice one Alpin, somewhere in the Ritten?
Packing list for the weight weenies:
Alpkit 20L bar bag
Ortileb 11L seat bag
Revelate 4L frame bag
Revelate jerrycan bag
Btwin gas tank bag
Salomon 20L backpack
Trekkertent Stealth 1 tent with carbon posts
Thermarest Neoair XLite Torso length sleeping pad
Mammot Hydrogen down sleeping bag
Sea to Summit dry bag
1 x Lightweight running boxers
1 x Decathlon running trousers
1 x Icebreaker long sleeve top
1 x Knee length compression socks
Montane down jacket
Some Amazon aqua shoes
Small Karrimor dry bag
1 x Endura padded shorts
1 x Endura Singletrack Lite shorts
1 x Endura long sleeve top
1 x socks
Scarpa Crux shoes
Giro Montaro helmet
Rab Nexus hooded mid layer
Endura Hummvee Lite gloves
Montane Minimus jacket
Gorewear Paclite waterproof trousers
Sealskin gloves
TLD knee pads
Lightweight buff
Ray Ban Wayfarer sunglasses
Inov8 2L bladder
Katadyn BeFree 1L filter bottle
2 x spare bladder bite nipples
Udderly Smooth chamois cream
SPF 50 sun cream
Handgel
Toothbrush and toothpaste
Wet wipes
Small bottle of shower gel
Microfibre towel
The Deuce #2 UL trowel
Toilet roll
Vango compact stove
Gas canister
Toaks 450L titanium mug
Plastic spoon
Leatherman tool
Black diamond headtorch with spare rechargeable batteries
Cateye rear light
Magicshine Monteer 3500 front light with helmet mount and 5,200mAh battery/ powerpack
Garmin Etrex 30 GPS with spare Eneloop Pro rechargeable batteries
Small battery charger
Plug adapter and leads
Samsung Galaxy XCover phone with spare battery
Waterproof phone case
Sandisk Clip MP3 player
Paper and a pencil
PDF phrase sheet
PDF itinerary/ information sheet
Copies of important documents
Passport
2 x debit cards, 1 x credit card, driving licence and GHIC card
Toolwrap with multi tool, tubeless repair kit, tube repair kit, tyre levers, shock pump, tyre pump, cassette tool, wire cutters, small adjustable spanner, dry lube, rag, 2No spare mech hangers, 3no spare brake pads, spare cable, zip ties, wrap of duct tape, dental floss, spare spokes.
Super glue, repair patches for tent/ sleeping mat
First aid kit, various pills/ gels, moisturiser cream, lip balm
Ankle support
Knee support
Yes I did only wear one pair of padded shorts for the whole trip!
Good lord, some trip tht. Quite inspirational and (selfishly) depressing at the same time. Liking the bike choice.
How was it landing back in the UK, dare I ask?
Jimmy - quite an adjustment to say the least.
I think I spent the whole of November and December in perpetual holiday blues mode, after the initial 'its nice to be back' honeymoon period. It didn't help though coming back to what seemed like the most miserable winter in recent memory.
Hence any fitness I did have has kind of gone off a cliff and now probably in the worst shape I have been in a long time. I'm confident though that as spring progresses I'll get it back.
Great stuff, thanks for posting. More please!
good effort OP, to say the least, and a great thread. inspirational. thanks!
What a fabulous trip and thanks for taking the time to share it.
I can imagine the dogs were a concern, well done with persevering! Do you now the approx costs/spending monies you incurred? Did you have any problems crossing borders?
Apologies been away for a bit and then life got in the way.
To answer your question Piha, I'm not prepared to say how much I spent, but lets just say this, I saved up a lot of money for the trip and nearly spent all of it. It was nice to know I didn't have to skrimp if I didn't want to.
With regards to border crossings no real issues.
The only ones were crossing into Bosnia, where I had to go back to get my passport stamped by a bemused Henry Rollins lookalike and crossing into Greece where I forgot to get my passport stamped as was so relieved to enter my final country.
This bit me on the bum going over to France recently, as I had no evidence of entering Greece and so got abit of a grilling from French passport control on my return. Thanks Brexit!
Bit of a run down of mechanical's/ parts used:
2 pairs of brake pads
2 cassettes and chains
1 rear bike tyre when the sidewall decided to give way in Southern Albania
10 punctures (Most of these were in the last couple of weeks when using a tube setup)
1 set of frame bearings and fork/ shock service within last month of trip
Apart from the odd worrying creak at times, she ran like a dream
Great trip & pictures thanks - got me reminiscing about a not dissimilar but road trip to Dubrovnik my brother & I did all the way back in 1984 😯